GospelTranslations.org

Here are some updates on the project that Agora is a part of with Open Source Mission.

Our goal with the GospelTranslations.org project is to make gospel-centered resources accessible for Christians of every nation and language . Our vision is that Christians everywhere will be able to learn about the gospel in their own languages and without financial impediments.

Believe it or not, we now have nearly 50 active translators in 9 languages, and in addition to the book that we are working on, we’ve translated about 40 Desiring God articles. The team with the most volunteers currently is the Spanish language one, and we will probably have enough Spanish material in the next month or two to actually start publicizing a Spanish Resource site. Bahasa Indonesia has the second most translations — chapters from CJ Mahaney's "This Great Salvation" and a few articles as well.

But the Bahasa Malaysia and Chinese language teams would need more help. If you guys are interested to help out on a voluntary basis, let's network and contact andrew at opensourcemission dot com

We are now in partnership with Desiring God, 9marks and Sovereign Grace in providing their online resources free.

Endorsements

“Sovereign Grace is passionate about gospel-centered churches built on the foundation of sound doctrine. That’s why we’re excited to partner with Open Source Mission. OSM’s new approach to translation and free distribution of gospel-centered materials will help make such churches a reality around the world.”

- C.J. Mahaney, President, Sovereign Grace Ministries

"I believe Open Source Mission is an answer to our prayers. We’re trying to make Desiring God's resources as accessible and affordable as possible to as many peoples around the world as possible...but we can't keep up with all the language translation requests. O that we had a new model to facilitate translations...I think Open Source Mission might be that model."

- Jon Bloom, Executive Director, Desiring God

"The western world is incredibly wealthy and ironically selfish. We in the Christian community should reflect the generosity God has shown us in Christ by investing in resources for the benefit of others. An obvious way is the translation of solid, gospel material into other languages. Open Source Mission and Sovereign Grace Ministries once again lead the way in generosity and zeal with their new translation initiative, GospelTranslations.org. I trust the men behind this program and most importantly I trust the God they serve who desires to see men and women from every nation come to know him."

- Dr. Mark Dever, Senior Pastor, Capitol Hill Baptist Church

God Doesn't Play Dice, But Does He Play Mahjong?

So what of dice and mahjong? (by Paul Woods)

In response to developments in quantum mechanics Einstein complained that God does not play dice – the universe’s physical functioning is not based on chance. Neither is its missiological functioning.

A few years ago an OMF colleague and I were discussing the increasing numbers of Mainland Chinese who live abroad. With horizontal, rotary, sweeping motions of both hands, he told me “God is washing the (mahjong) tiles”. Mahjong is the classic Chinese game similar to a combination of playing cards and dominoes, in which the tiles are shuffled or washed after each game. From this we derived the term mahjong theology to advocate Diaspora Ministry. In His sovereignty, today God is shuffling the pack, and washing people from various ethnic groups and cultural backgrounds all over the planet. Just as God washed Ruth and Rahab into the community of faith, so now He is washing Chinese to the UK, for example. This is nothing new; Acts 17:26-27 tell us that God made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

For us, the migration phenomenon of the early 21st century ties together the Great Commission with the ethics of God-fearing community, and an acknowledgement of God’s sovereignty in the affairs of men and women. Indeed, Christian ministry among migrants has been described as Acts 1:8 in reverse; God is bringing people from the ends of the earth right to our street. We are to respond to this challenge right where we live.

Some may perceive migration as a menace, but as citizens and Christians we should view it as ministry opportunity. Unprecedented numbers of people are on the move, looking for safety, freedom, or just a better life. The expansion of the EU and ASEAN, improved communication, and ever-cheaper travel have all shrunk our world. At the same time, poverty, conflict, and hardship in many regions have caused millions to cross borders to richer, more stable nations.

Migrants are often creative, proactive people looking for a better life. There is much anecdotal evidence that migrants are more open to new things than those who remain at home. Yet the same people are vulnerable and needy. Before leaving China, one student was told by non-believing relatives, “If you need help in Britain, go to a church. They will look after you”. Our own Diaspora ministry showed us that
while apologetics and Bible study were important, the vital factor in the journey to faith was God’s love manifest through His people, across a faith – non-faith interface.

Read the entire Encounter issue on Mission and Migration here

Open Source Mission

There is a new ministry initiative launching publicly this week called Open Source Mission (OSM). OSM is a non-profit initiative to enable translation of contemporary evangelical materials from English to various languages through the power of mass collaboration. Some of us who frequent this blog have been working on this in various ways over the past few months so we're excited that it's now unveiled and launched.

OSM is founded on the belief that accessibility to biblically sound content is of strategic importance to the vitality of the growing churches worldwide. In particular, we see an opportunity to bring translated Christian materials to the non-English speaking world by taking advantage of technology innovation and an “open source”, participatory model of translation. Our vision is to create a new, revolutionary, framework for translation by combining the following components:

• Global social network of volunteer translators
• Proven “open source” methodology
• Web 2.0 collaboration platform

In essence, what we hope to see are several ongoing translation projects fueled by the passion and skills of volunteer translators, resulting in an online reference portal of translated books and articles in a multitude of languages – all available for free.

The distinctive focus of OSM is simple -

Mass Collaboration - We want to enable translation through the mass collaboration of volunteer translators. We believe the Web 2.0 world has opened unique opportunities for collaboration through a community participatory model. Such models have been proven successful in other arenas. By applying methodologies similar to those used in an open source software projects like Linux or Web 2.0 projects like Wikipedia, we hope to effectively tackle the translation challenge.

Contemporary Gospel Centric Writings - We want to focus on contemporary, evangelical, gospel centric materials. We’re not interested in doing Bible translations – that’s best left to professionals. Nor are we planning to tackle historical writings (i.e. Puritans, Reformers, early Church Fathers) - there are sufficient hurdles in bridging the translation and cultural gap without undertaking the challenge of a historical gap as well. We're initially focused on contemporary translations from our partner organizations.

Leveraging Technology - We want to leverage technology to make these materials accessible. We believe that the trajectory of technology adoption in the developing nations means that the most effective and inexpensive way to get materials to our fellow Christians in these nations is to provide this material on the web, searchable, cross referenceable and free.

OSM, together with partners like Sovereign Grace Ministries, Desiring God, 9 Marks and other like-minded organizations, will work on the Gospel Translation Project. The Gospel Translation Project involves building a "wikipedia type" portal of translated content at www.gospeltranslations.org. (Disclaimer: the portal is currently in beta and content is still being loaded onto the site.)

Initially, our focus will be to work on translating materials from the aforementioned partners who have generously contributed to our translation permissions library.

If you find this intriguing, interesting, or possibly even inspiring, here’s how to get involved:

1. Check out the OSM website , learn more about what we do , offer feedback and please pray for the ministry.

2. If you are bilingual, please consider using your language skills in one of our projects. You can sign up on the OSM website or email our Ministry Coordinator, Andrew Mahr - andrew@opensourcemission.com. By participating in one of our projects, your contribution will impact your fellow Christians for years to come.

3. Please help spread the word. If you're a blogger, please consider blogging about OSM and the Gospel Translation Project. This is a grassroots movement and thrives on individual volunteer initiative. If you should blog on this, please let others know of the need for translation and issue a gracious call for bilingual Christians to consider participating in this.

4. Link to Open Source Mission on your sidebar and let us know. We need help to make this work and we'd love to have you get involved in some way...even if you can't translate.

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We have a number of willing translators in Malaysia and Indonesia but we would be glad to get more help. There are translation projects starting up in a number of languages including Bahasa, Chinese, Korean and Spanish. If you can speak any of these languages, please consider lending your help.